Aldo Leopold

Deep Ecology, American Roots: Part 4

/ Seth Inman / 6 Comments

Here are some final thoughts following my discussion of the relationship between deep ecology and certain American figures:

Just as deep ecologists at heart may need to stay closeted to keep their public shallow ecology jobs, shallow ecology groups such as The Group of Ten must retain their traditional views in order to maintain government support and continue to receive public donations from massive bases.  In the early 1980s alone, Sierra Club membership grew by 90%; as the mainstream groups grow, it makes sense that more radical splinters will form.  Unlike traditional environmental groups, however, the fringe splinters are fairly flexible to fundamental changes in ideology.  David Foreman eventually left Earth First!, thinking it had become too concerned with social justice issues when the group opened alliances with labor unions; he believed wilderness preservation had lost priority as the group’s mission.  But was this shift in Earth First!’s goals one from deep to shallow ecology?  This query presents issues inherent in social justice, which are far too vast to discuss here; the simplest answer, it seems, would depend greatly on whom the group was serving, and to what ends. Continue reading →

Deep Ecology, American Roots: Part 2

/ Seth Inman / 3 Comments

My Part 1 post a couple days ago focused on George Perkins Marsh’s writings, and how they related to Arne Naess’ deep ecology. I closed with Marsh’s concluding comments in Man and Nature, which I’m including here:

In his final essay, “Nothing Small in Nature,” Marsh cautions that humans are never justified in assuming that their actions have no significant consequences just because they see no effects.  His advice—implicit in that the book ends after this point, with no structured summary or conclusion—is that people must look for, and then react properly (responsibly) to, the deleterious influence they can have on their environment.

But is this deep ecology?  Naess emphasizes the “equal right to live and blossom” of all organisms, allowing that in practice this principle of ecological egalitarianism cannot be fully carried out.  Marsh, when asked by his publisher whether or not man was a “part of nature,” replied that his beliefs could not be further from the idea that “man is a ‘part of nature’ or that his action is controlled by the laws of nature; in fact a leading spirit of the book is to enforce the opposite opinion, and to illustrate the fact that man… is a free moral agent working independently of nature.”   Continue reading →

What the Trees Read

/ Seth Inman / 4 Comments

Without question, the section of Cayuga Lake’s Inlet that receives the most traffic is a small area of shoreline at the corner of the second tendril extending east from the Inlet into Ithaca. Community members and college students are attracted to this little spot on the Inlet, known as Steamboat Landing, because the Ithaca Farmer’s Market spends its weekends there, sheltered under a long wooden pavilion topped by a green metal roof. Dozens of stalls are laden with earthly, culinary, and artistic crafts; more than a couple hundred people a day visit each of them to browse and purchase these locally produced goods.

This quaint market is surrounded by a mixture of modern development and natural shoreline that I could not have noticed from the Inlet’s waters—only by walking around Steamboat Landing was I able to understand the spot’s significance to the Ithaca community, and connect elements of Henry David Thoreau’s and Aldo Leopold’s writings with the history of the place. Continue reading →